


Rebellious Birds

by carpemermaid



Series: Rebellious Birds [1]
Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: (for now) - Freeform, (what do you mean thieves don't meet-cute mid-heist?), Amnesia, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Episode Related, F/M, Fake Out Make Out, Finding new life skills in interesting places, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Heist, Introspection, Kissing, Light Angst, Meet-Cute, Memory Loss, POV Gray | Crackle, Pining, Post-Season/Series 01, Romance, Self-Discovery, The Opera in the Outback Caper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-18 12:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17580914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpemermaid/pseuds/carpemermaid
Summary: He’s always loved that hum, that steady buzz that makes his heartbeat sing and crackle. He might work in one of the world’s most famous opera houses and hear countless arias and beautifully composed symphonies, but it’s the low-frequency tune that’s music to his ears.He needs the routines he sets for himself, at first because his doctors recommended them in an effort to bring back any memories that could be blocked, and then because if he didn’t stick to the routines he would be forced to face the odd little urges and impossible, wild things he sees when he closes his eyes every night.Still, sometimes Graham can’t help but wonder about those missing parts of his life.Or, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Graham ends up right back where he started.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Unbeta'd**! Sorry folks, if there's any weird sentence flow or wonky mistakes let me know in a dm on tumblr or hit me up on discord and I'll sort it out when I've got a chance! I'm trying to get this out fast before I have to leave on vacation tomorrow. I'll be editing it and polishing it later on to smooth out any mistakes!
> 
> Um yeah so yet another fandom + ship for me, one that I was like oh that's cool when watching the show and then in the days after finishing season 1 grew on me more and more and now I'm Invested™ and I'm in Deep™ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> This was supposed to be quick and fast but Graham screams character study so... have a whole chapter of introspection about amnesia first ;A;

Routine becomes Graham’s only tether to keep it together after he woke up in the hospital without any idea what happened to him.

The doctors told him the incident occurred at work and his only choice is to accept it, even if it doesn’t sound like him. Carefree as he might be, when it came to electrical work he was always careful and played by the rules. Returning to life as a junior electrician doesn’t really hold the same spark it used to before the accident—whatever it was that shocked him and knocked him out for over a year in a coma.

Relying on a routine to see him through his days is how he keeps the weird dreams and flashes of strange thoughts at bay.

Graham takes solace in the familiar, appreciating the route he remembers to take to the opera house for work each morning and that he can recognize _his table_ at his favorite cafe when he grabs a drink in the evenings, situated to perfectly people watch and appreciate the glittering lights of Sydney at night. He pauses every morning before entering Sydney Opera House to close his eyes and take a deep whiff of the sea air, listen to the gulls overhead, and strain his ears to see if he can hear the quiet hum of electricity from a streetlamp before it shuts off with the light of day.

He’s always loved that hum, that steady buzz that makes his heartbeat sing and crackle. He might work in one of the world’s most famous opera houses and hear countless arias and beautifully composed symphonies, but it’s the low-frequency tune that’s music to his ears.

He needs the routines he sets for himself, at first because his doctors recommended them in an effort to bring back any memories that could be blocked, and then because if he didn’t stick to the routines he would be forced to face the odd little urges and impossible, wild things he sees when he closes his eyes every night.

Still, sometimes Graham can’t help but wonder about those missing parts of his life.

He must have grown or changed in some way—it’s like his body doesn’t quite fit into the shape of his life before the amnesia, a square peg this side of too big for a round hole.

There’s little hints that he must have changed something about his usual habits at some point—his body is tighter, muscles more firm and honed, his senses sharper, eyes and ears picking up on things like different ways in and out whenever he walks in a room or picking up sounds he’d never paid attention to before.

Graham doesn’t know how he went from getting electrocuted while at work to fitter than he was before, something just doesn’t add up.

He stands before his bathroom mirror, automatically combing his wavy hair back from his face when the muscle memory makes him pause. He’s done that every morning since coming home to his apartment from the hospital, but in all the photos hanging on his walls his hair is shorter and styled differently. Graham hesitates for a moment before ruffling his fingers through his fringe to let it fall into his face in a swoop of messy locks. He stares at his reflection with his lips pursed to one side. Familiarity tugs at the edges of his senses before he shakes off the feeling like a shroud and sweeps his hair back in place.

He checks the mirror again with a searching look, hand squeezing the back of his neck while he catalogues the subtle and more obvious ways in which he’s changed. What unsettles him more isn’t the hair growth, but what else has changed that he can’t see, what’s different about him beneath the surface. He can’t put his finger on it, but he knows it’s there, waiting for him to forget the safety and monotony of his routines so it can spring into his mind and make him question what’s going on.

Graham wears the same well-worn denim jacket and trainers every day, follows the same path to the opera house, but one morning he catches sight of a shop window with an array of items on display. It’s a second hand shop that he hadn’t noticed before.

Nestled in the window between a vintage bicycle and an antique typewriter is a set of nesting dolls with an intricate red design that make him pause.

His step falters and he shuffles out of the way of busy people hurrying on their way before he’s trampled. Graham steps closer to the window and bends down for a better look, admiring the dolls. The corner of his mouth lifts into a lopsided smile and warmth spreads through his chest at the sight of them.

It’s not the first time he’s come across something seemingly inconsequential that he never would have given a second thought to Before.

He’s aware that now he tends to follow cats around whenever he sees them, he notices mole holes burrowing in his neighbor’s vegetable patch, and he even got sucked into watching a documentary on mountain goats when he would normally keep flipping channels.

These oddities draw his attention and his focus, almost like beacons for his foggy mind to find its lost moorings—only he has no idea whether he’s just looking for signs or if it’s like that weird thing where tastebuds can change over time.

Maybe near-death experiences with electricity work the same way, somehow rewiring the body’s systems to like new things.

Maybe Graham’s just halfway to bonkers at this point.

He snorts to himself and shakes his head, stepping back into the fray of morning commuters and leaves the nesting dolls behind. He’s got sound check for a matinee to sort out and the show must go on.

That’s the night he encounters Carmen for the first time.

Only—meeting her is like coming home, not like getting to know someone he doesn’t know yet.

It’s not until he meets her that he realizes he’s been staying afloat in stasis for weeks, existing in a liminal space of old routines and pieced-together half-memories, but finally it feels like what’s been missing from his life slots partially into place.

She’s a fiery spark that lights him up, intriguing and mysterious; he doesn’t want to look away from her—couldn’t do it if he was paid to. She’s bold and the look in her eyes when he first grasped her arm and told her he was going to escort her from the premises if she didn’t return to her seat ignited something inside him that felt like it had been dormant for weeks since he woke up. When she realizes he’s not who she thought he was—just someone who reminds her of another guy she used to know—a melancholic pang echoes through him making him simultaneously wish he was who she wanted him to be and glad he’s not, because surely he doesn’t want to be on her bad side. Or maybe he does, it might be fun.

He’s momentarily lost in a brief vision of what she might be like, picturing playful sparring that ebbs over the line of competitiveness and ends with his guard down and her knees pinning his shoulders to the floor. He can feel the lightning-struck, dopey smile on his face and makes no effort to tame it. Yeah—maybe her bad side could be something he’d be into.

He promises not to make the mistake of forgetting her again, unable to hold back a flirtatious glance down at her striking trench coat and a cheeky smirk.

There’s something familiar and comforting about her, but at the same time she makes him curious to know more.

Graham can’t get her out of his mind, even after she disappeared like smoke in the wind. That glimpse he caught of her from his table at the cafe singed his nerve endings, burning into him in an unforgettable way. He can’t go a full day without Carmen popping into his head.

The routines become harder to follow now that he knows Carmen exists.

Graham finds himself daydreaming about what ifs and harebrained scenarios where he _could_ be the guy she thought he was when she pinned him in place with that fierce, righteous look and demanded to know what he was doing there.

Maybe in another life, he tells himself as he passes by the second hand shop with the nesting dolls displayed in the window. The corners of his lips curl into a smile and Carmen fills his mind at the sight of them. They remind Graham of her—it must be the red.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the surprise of no one, I am both too wordy for my own good and Graham continues to be an introspective character ;A;
> 
> Splitting what was meant to be the actual plot outline into two chapters, so now this should stay as 3 chapters overall. Hopefully.
> 
> Heads up, I'm flying out of the country for a week of vacation tomorrow, so the final chapter won't be available until I return!

Months later, when the temperature in Sydney dips low enough that Graham can get away with tricks that will make the authorities blame the cold, he’s in the middle of casing the gallery exhibit for a job.

For a second, he thinks he catches the edge of a distinct red trench coat skirting around the corner and it makes him pause his casual stroll past the painting he’s going to steal.

_Carmen_ , he thinks, trying to push aside the longing so he can focus.

He never meant to fall into a life of crime, but he figured out he could make more money from turning the lights out than keeping them on. The pay for a junior electrician was all right, but crafty capers for precious goods paid better—way better.

It was shortly after Carmen disappeared before his eyes that it happened. He picked the pocket of a man walking in front of him without even meaning to. His hands moved on their own accord.

Graham had ducked into a coffee shop and doubled back two blocks with a wallet that wasn’t his burning a hole in his pocket. When he was sure he wasn’t being followed, he took it out and stared down at it, hands trembling.

_What the hell? What was he doing?_

He had pushed it from his mind after discreetly dumping the wallet in a spot he was sure it would find its way back to the owner he’d stolen it from.

Except, he couldn’t forget about it because it happened again. And then again.

Graham thought he was losing his mind—he’d done that once already, and didn’t fancy a repeat, thanks.

It wasn’t just pickpocketing. He started nicking all sorts of things, like cigarettes from the corner shop by his apartment (he didn’t smoke) and a bicycle (because it was left unattended and he needed a way home in the rain) and a stage light from the opera house (because he wanted to see if he could get away with it). He got away with all of it.

Graham had himself a little freak out over the turn his life was taking—and then he went and took it another step further.

He discovered on top of inexplicable muscle memory and sticky fingers, he also had an instinctual talent for stealth that went well with his electrical expertise.

He started small at first, relying on the muscle memory he couldn’t explain to work his way up the ladder with bigger and better payoffs. Soon enough, he was leaving petty theft behind for coordinated plans and lucrative acquisitions. He spent two months lifting and moving luxury cars with electrical systems that matched an older model his granddad taught him to fix in the summers between school.

Cars led to jewels and jewels led to multi-million dollar high-end art jobs.

Graham steals a glance at his watch as he tracks the movement of a security camera out of the corner of his eye. Another flash of red catches his attention and he falters. His pulse speeds up, a steady _thump-thump-thump_ zinging beneath his skin.

She stands across the gallery wearing signature red Converse, jeans cuffed up, and hands stuffed in the pockets of a cropped red jacket with the hood up.

Graham takes a step closer, drawn by an invisible rope cinching around his middle.

This time he’s sure it’s her. He stops himself after two more steps.

_Keep your head together, Gray_ , he thinks to himself. He’s been down this road before, several times since that first fateful meeting with Carmen.

He’s seen the same thing countless times over the months since she first brought a spark of life to his existence. It hadn’t been her any of the times before, so why would it be her now?

His mind is just playing cruel tricks on him again.

Graham hums a melody under his breath that’s been stuck in his head since Carmen first blew in and out of his life like a graceful bird swan diving: _L'amour est un oiseau rebelle_.

He takes another stroll around the gallery for good measure, memorizing the exits and entrances— _note to self: the fire escape has a two-tier security protocol to disarm_ —and when he looks back to where not-Carmen was standing, she’s no longer there. Ah, so it was just a trick of his mind after all.

Graham’s smirk is sharp and he tries not to cut himself on the lonely edges.

Once he became a thief, some of his memories did return. He caught snatches of them here and there; he would be in the middle of pulling a job when a familiar breaker switch would snag in his mind and he was stuck with the worst sense of deja vu. Only partial memories seem to return, no matter how he tried to imagine himself planning out a job in the same way he might have Before; he had at least worked out by now that he must have turned to crime. He guessed it might have something to do with how he lost his accident, even if he was told it happened at work.

In a way, the doctors had been onto something with routines. What they’d been wrong about was the kind of routines Graham needed to be doing to regain access to his lost memories.

He’s not fully recovered though, still missing large gaps. But, out of the partial things he does remember, those have become the most precious to him. He runs through them before he falls asleep at night, almost as if he’s frightened that if he doesn’t adhere to the new routine that he could lose them again.

They aren’t much—he remembers laughter and mischievous pranks, gray eyes and sun-warmed bronze skin, and countless hours spent practicing pick pocketing. Whenever it rains, he can’t stop smiling and gets the itch to get into trouble for fun. And then there’s the memory that makes his heart pinch snug in his chest. The one where he’s free falling with the wind whipping his hair around and stinging his face while his brain repeats _don’t let go_ over and over because he’s gripping onto a familiar girl—she could be Carmen’s sister for how much they look alike, but he tries not to examine that thought too closely—while she holds onto him just as tightly. They all fill him with a sense of longing and bone-deep loneliness, a void he wants to fill but no matter how much the life he’s leading gives him a thrill it’s not the same as the ache he has when those half-memories dance through his mind.

Later, when he’s sneaking back into his mapped out entry to the gallery under the cover of a foggy night, Graham’s in focus mode.

His steps are light as he cuts a quick zigzag past the guard at the gate when he’s not looking, around behind the security booth and pulls out his tools to take care of the cable lines and wires running into the booth that feed the bay of screens showing the camera footage. Graham bypasses the homemade stun gun he built—a stick he kept wanting to call his crackle stick, but couldn’t get himself to commit to the moniker—and rolled out a canvas tool belt. He makes quick work of the feed, overlaying his own protocol as a piggyback on the cameras so that he’ll be able to have eyes on the inside and the guard will see a benign loop.

Once he’s in the clear, he checks his watch to count the seconds he has until the secondary guards make their patrol around the gallery halls and bolts off like an electric shock as soon as the second hand on his watch hits the mark.

Graham reaches the room he had cased earlier and crouches in the shadows, back to one corner of the room so he can see the entrances and exits he marked. His eyes fall to his wrist again, lips silently forming around the numbers as he counts down to when he has to enact the next stage of his plan. This is the part that gets the thrill building inside of him, adrenaline crackling to life along his nerve endings with zinging little sparks of excitement.

The lights cut out—he can no longer hear the quiet hum of the industrial-grade recess lights used in the painting displays.

_What the fu—_

Graham’s heart skips a beat and his eyes dart around the room, which is even darker than it was a moment ago. He holds still for another few beats. He instinctively knows something is wrong; it has to be, the power cut out before he had the chance to do it himself.

Movement across the room catches his attention, the barest shift of dim light reflecting against one of the protective glass cases over the paintings hung in the gallery. From his vantage point in the corner, Graham watches the shadowy figure move fluidly across the room as if they were a tidal wave in motion, adaptive and ever-moving.

He chews on the inside of his lip. _Shit_. He wants to repeat it again, out loud, with more emphasis, but he can’t give himself away if they missed him. He wants to laugh—has to smother it before it can bubble out of him in a huff of breath.

This is the biggest job he’s pulled yet. Or, well. The biggest he was about to pull, until some arsehole decided to encroach on his target for themselves. Graham’s eyes narrow and he melts out of his position in a graceful motion. He hasn’t lost to this other thief yet, and the payout on this job is too good to just give up.

He stays out of their peripheral vision and makes his own quick approach toward the prize he wants—the one they both want, he supposes. He lifts his arms, ready to rely on his mysterious muscle memory to take the other thief out, but they sense him before he makes his move, ducking down and away from his grab and sweeping his feet out from under him. He gets a kick in, but they block it with a soft grunt and it glances off the dark material they’re cloaked in. He rolls away from the next blow and springs back to his feet only to stop dead in his tracks when he squares up, fists raised.

Carmen is standing opposite to him, mirroring his stance.

His heart thuds in his chest. A tingle of heat runs through him. For half a second he’s distracted by a fantasy he had once, when they first met.

Suddenly, her indignation at him backstage at the opera house makes sense. She was a thief! A thief, just like him. And she thought he was there to steal her thunder! Well, that part was true; he did really need that payout.

They don’t look away from each other and time stands still. Graham doesn’t want to be the first to break. Her eyes narrow marginally and flick to the painting. Graham’s eyes follow and then swing back to Carmen.

His brain catches up belatedly and the adrenaline that had built in him with the thrill of a smoothly run caper fades, replaced by the electrified realization that _Carmen is there_.

Graham’s breath leaves him in a rush. Too many questions swirl in his head all at once, so many that he can’t get his tongue to move, can’t form the words he’s been desperate to ask her if he ever had the chance to see her again.

“What are you doing here?” Carmen asks. She folds her arms over her chest, red lips pursed to one side.

“I—” Graham’s still wrangling his words. He shakes his head and huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “I can’t believe it’s actually you. I—you’re a thief?”

He gestures to her attire and gives her a once over. She raises a skeptical eyebrow.

“I thought you said you were an electrician?”

“I am,” Graham assures her. He hesitates and backtracks. “Er—well, I was. But sort of still am? I…ah…found a more lucrative salary for my particular expertise.”

Something Graham can’t name flashes across Carmen’s eyes—a quick burst of emotion that makes her face crumble for the briefest of moments before she smooths her expression into a blank mask.

Graham blinks and falls back a step. It’s like she’s shut him out with one look. She barely changed anything about her posture, but Graham can feel the weight of how her attitude differs from the relaxed mood she had a moment ago when she realized who he was.

His stomach twists unpleasantly, bucking at the idea that she wouldn’t trust him.

Graham doesn’t know who he’s kidding—it’s not like they really know each other. They’ve only talked twice, briefly. He can’t expect a girl who barely knows him to believe he’s trustworthy.

Still, the painful truth burns through him, stinging him with blistering heat.

“I looked for you. After—after,” Graham says quietly.

Carmen’s face doesn’t shift, but her eyes shine, piercing and fierce. Her throat bobs as she swallows.

“You—ah,” he says, raking his fingers through his hair and scratching at his head. He aims for a nonchalant shrug, but his shoulders are too stiff with tension to pull it off as a casual gesture. He grimaces. “You actually helped me. In a way.”

“How so?” Carmen keeps her responses short, but Graham can see there’s more she wants to say in her eyes.

“After I met you in Sydney, I think I started to…remember. A little, at least. Fragments of things here and there. You helped shift whatever was blocking me,” Graham explained.

The intense emotion in her eyes makes them glimmer and Graham has to restrain himself from reaching out, because if he does he’s going to do something like hug her. He’s pretty sure if he tried to do that right then it would be a death wish of sorts.

Carmen pushes out a strained sigh. “Look,” she starts. Carmen tips her head to the side, indicating the painting they’re both after. “I can’t let you steal this tonight.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hallooooo! I have returned from my vacation, thank you all for waiting so patiently for the final party! Can I just say, none of y'all are ready for this chapter hahahaha. I wrote it and _I'm_ barely still alive after it. Good luck hahaha!

Graham crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

Carmen’s lips purse together. She doesn’t answer and says, “Art theft never seemed to be your M.O. before.”

“Before?” Graham jolts and takes a step closer. “So you did really know me? Before? I figured I was a thief, what with the uncontrollable sticky fingers, but you actually knew me?”

He can’t do anything to mask the desperate curiosity and hunger for hints about Before in his voice and it reflects in Carmen’s eyes. Her expression remains still. She shrugs one shoulder.

“We crossed paths once or twice.”

“Did we work together? Did we meet on the job?” Graham presses. He searches Carmen’s eyes for any other shift to indicate whether he’s on the mark or not. “Were we—were we—”

Graham swallows. He can’t finish his sentence, can’t get out the words to ask if they were like some super thief duo—partners in crime and maybe partners in more than just that as well. He beats back the hope billowing in his chest and drops his eyes to Carmen’s red lips for a second.

“We were on the same side. Once,” Carmen says, tone laced with the edges of bitterness. She turns away to face the painting they’ve staked out. Graham waits, and finally she quietly admits, “We were friends…or so I thought.”

“Friends,” Graham repeats on a raspy breath, tasting the word in his mouth. _Friends_. He wants to reach out to her. Friends do that, don’t they?

“Graham, look,” Carmen says, swinging back to him in a graceful motion.

“Gray,” he corrects automatically.

She blinks, momentarily thrown. There’s a haunted, _hunted_ look in her eyes. “What?”

“My code name. I go by Gray now. I, ah,” he says, fighting off a burst of self-consciousness and avoids eye contact. “Picked it up somewhere.” He refuses to say it was because she’d called him that, once, when she had mistaken him at the opera house for someone else. “It sounded fitting since my M.O. is to steal by the cover of darkness.” His confidence returns and he winks at her. “Lights out, baby.”

Carmen makes an indiscernible, rough sound in her throat. Her hands ball into fists and her teeth sink into her bottom lip.

“ _Gray_ ,” she restates with strained emphasis. “You should forget all about this painting and…move onto the next job. Trust me, it’s better this way. We were never here and all that. You didn’t see me tonight.”

Each word looks like it costs her something precious to say. She makes a waving gesture with her gloved hands and Graham frowns.

“Why, though? You’re foggy on the details, love, and I have to say, the payout on this job is something I’d rather not pass up just to be a gentleman and let the lady in red take my prize instead.”

Carmen remains cagey. “Don’t call me that, Gray. Look, there’s other paintings you can steal. In this gallery, even.” Carmen jerks her chin in several directions to indicate the different offerings the gallery has on display. “That one, that one—hell, any of them. Just not this one.”

“You and I both know _this_ one is the most valuable in the collection,” Graham insists, narrowing his eyes.

Even with her heeled boots, he has to look slightly down at her to return her stubborn gaze. His mind turns over a stone in his head and his brows shoot up.

“Wait,” he says, holding up his hands. “Is it your crew? If they’re pressuring you, tell me—I can help you! Or a boss?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s complicated.” Carmen sighs and presses her fingertips into the wrinkle pinching her forehead.

“I work alone,” Graham tells her insistently. “I tried the crew thing, at first, but it never seemed to stick. Anyway, I was just going to sell the score on the black market to the highest bidder.”

Carmen shoots him another of her guarded looks. “This painting is all part of a bigger picture, so I need you to forget tonight ever happened.”

Graham sucks in a sharp breath and falters back half a step. “I told you,” he says, voice shaking slightly. “I’m done forgetting, remember, mate?”

She studies his crooked smile and he imagines she can easily map the bitterness seeping into it.

“Sorry,” Carmen says quietly.

Graham lets a beat pass between them and clears his throat. Some of the tension bleeds out of both of their shoulders.

“Can I help you, at least?” Graham tries. He aims for a cheeky, playful tone. “Since youre costing me, here?”

Carmen brightens, relief etched into the upturn of her red lips.

Graham’s heart trips over itself in his chest. He would do anything—even give up his thieving ways—to make Carmen smile like that again. He wants to see that smile, and every other one she has, all the time.

“So, truce?” Graham holds out a gloved hand of his own to shake.

Carmen hesitates before taking it. “Just this once, I guess. Don’t expect it to be a regular thing. You did say you like to work on your own.”

“I could learn to be flexible with the right persuasion.” Graham smirks.

A little thrill shoots through his nerve endings at the way her long lashes flutter and she darts her gaze away. It’s hard to tell in the dark and with her bronze skin, but if Graham were to hazard a guess, he’d bet his stun gun rod that his flirting earned him a blush.

“Right,” Graham says at the same time Carmen says, “Okay, so—”

Graham chuckles and gives a sweeping bow gesture to let Carmen take the lead.

“It’s your show now,” he offers.

The corners of Carmen’s mouth curl into a satisfied smirk that makes Graham’s knees go a little weak and he thinks he would gladly give control over to her whenever she asked.

As Carmen explains the plan, pausing to bring a finger to her ear and listen to whoever’s on her comm—the rest of her crew, Graham guesses—gears turn in Graham’s mind to form his own plan. He’s good enough by now he thinks he can whisk the painting away from Carmen in the getaway. After all, if Carmen’s still going to steal it, then it’s not like Graham stealing it would’ve been that big of a deal.

They work well together—almost too well. Graham thinks they fit together like lock and key with how easy it is to fall into Carmen’s plan. Within minutes, they have the painting secured and Carmen’s calling card graffiti hanging in place at the central feature position in the gallery.

“We should team up,” Graham observes as Carmen shuts the briefcase she brought to store the painting in.

She grants him another speaking look full of complicated emotions that tug on Graham’s heart strings, plucking them like the notes on a harp to play a sombre melody.

Graham resists reaching out to tuck a strand of her long hair back when it falls in her face as she looks away once more.

“Or,” he continues, sensing this is a sore subject for her. He chews on the inside of his lip, hoping again that Carmen doesn’t run with a rotten crew. “If you already have a team, maybe I could, like, audition to join your group, or something.”

Graham licks his lips. He’s hopeful and optimistic, smiling sincerely at her. He can picture them together, casing jobs and staying two steps ahead of the law, sneaking through alleys and along rooftops—they would make a good team.

Before Carmen can answer, they hear a noise outside of the gallery. Graham curses under his breath and checks his watch. He’d lost track of time and wasn’t paying attention. He glances to the hall where he can make out the sweep of a torchlight from the approaching guard.

He exchanges a tense look with Carmen. They haven’t reached the safety point yet. They’ll have to act fast.

Graham pulls on his instincts and silently motions to Carmen. She interprets his meaning and they slip out of the room through the shadows together.

“We have to hurry, our timing’s off,” Graham risks saying under his breath.

Carmen acknowledges him with a hand sign that he doesn’t remember learning, but can read and understand all the same. He shoves the nagging questions of _why_ and _how_ and thoughts of Before aside so he can better concentrate on escaping undetected.

Graham knows they’re running out of time when he peeks at his watch again. They’ve only made it to an outer courtyard when he spots another security guard on his patrol rounds. Graham halts, nearly overbalanced when Carmen slams into his back. He reaches back awkwardly to steady her, gripping her trench coat to keep from falling over.

Despite the stakes raising higher and higher, Graham lives for the zing of adrenaline heating up his veins, the thrill coursing through him as his mind races.

“—got company, Player. Any exit routes?” Carmen has her fingers to her hidden comm again and Graham overhears her talking to her teammate on the other side.

He waves her off. “I have a better idea.”

Graham unzips his dark jacket and shoves it under a bush along with Carmen’s briefcase. Beneath his stealth attire for the job, he’s wearing his back up plan. It had taken him two weeks of careful infiltration around employee canteens to get his hands on a stained security guard’s kit—even took the trouble of having it dry cleaned.

Carmen gives him a once over, staring. She huffs out a bubble of laughter. “I didn’t think of that for a disguise. Good one.”

Graham lets the praise roll over him and shoots her a pleased grin.

“I can’t just pose as a guard with a plus one, though,” Graham whispers as the guard’s steps draw nearer to the section of the garden they’re in. His pulse is thrumming and he licks his lips. “If he asks, I brought you out here to impress you—cool security guard boyfriend who can take you on a private museum tour.”

“Right,” Carmen says, nodding along. “Makes sense.”

Graham can hear the gravel crunching beneath the standard issue boots the guard wears. He darts a look in the guard’s direction and back at Carmen, eyes widening.

“Is this going to work?” Carmen asks.

“Maybe. I didn’t think I’d have to use it with someone else with me,” Graham explains. “It was just a backup if I needed to make a faster getaway. I didn’t account for this.”

“Okay, well he’s coming. I don’t think this is going to be enough distraction. We still have time to climb the tree over there, I’ve got just the tool for—“

“Do you trust me? I have an idea,” Graham says in a rush.

“Are you kidding me?” Carmen shoots back, guarded. “This already was your idea! If you didn’t think it was a good one, we could’ve escaped by now!”

A pleading, desperate look crosses Graham’s face. “We have to do something. He’s coming!”

If he were able to view their conversation from an outsider perspective, it might seem funny. They were whisper-arguing while checking the location of the guard.

“Can I kiss you?” Graham blurts.

“ _What_?” Carmen hisses.

They’re out of time. The guard turns onto the path they’re on and Graham pushes out a breath through his nose before stepping close enough that his chest brushes against her. He wraps his arms loosely around her waist and brings his face close to hers. Her eyes are wide and striking.

Graham hesitates before kissing her, not wanting to really do it without her permission. He reasons that they can pull this off with theatrics—it’s dark enough, after all. But, god, does he want to kiss her; he aches with it.

To Graham’s surprise, Carmen’s the one to make a soft sound of frustration and close the distance between them.

Graham’s breath stutters as their lips meet, and then he realizes he’s _kissing_ Carmen and jolts into action. His arms tighten around her when he feels her grip the material of his security guard disguise and he kisses her deeply, relishing the small sound she makes before she meets his ferocity with vigor that has him searching blindly with one hand for the tree behind her to keep his balance. She’s as feisty to kiss as she is when he’s watching her at work, a live current he can’t contain.

Kissing Carmen is like tumbling through the sky, two birds synchronizing in flight. It’s a beautiful dance with dramatic drop offs and swooping climbs that soar across his nerve endings. Graham could easily become addicted to her kisses.

As their lips slide together, Graham sees flashes of what he thinks might be more memories bursting behind his closed eyes. For once, despite months of grappling with recovery from amnesia and routines, Graham shoves the maybe-memories aside in favor of gently pressing Carmen back against the tree, fingers sliding into her thick hair.

She makes an amused sound and with a nimble trick with her foot, she whirls him around to make his back hit the bark instead, reversing their positions. Graham stares at the sinful, lopsided smirk she gives him before she presses another kiss to his lips, her clever hands tracing exploratory paths over his chest and shoulders. Graham’s heart beats out of control in his chest, thumping like he’s been shocked with a high voltage.

He wants to do this for hours—forever, wants to lay her back against his bed sheets and piece out the puzzle of what makes her cry out with his mouth, has a need to map her skin with his lips and wants to let her touch him any way she wants to.

Carmen’s teeth graze over his bottom lip and Graham can’t hold back a raspy groan of pleasure, palms flexing over her waist.

“Oi! What’s going on over here?”

The shout brings Graham and Carmen crashing back into reality like they’ve plunged voluntarily from a helicopter to sky dive.

They pull apart as if they were both burned, but Graham’s arms circling her waist keep her from breaking the connection completely.

Graham had forgotten why they needed to kiss as a ruse in the first place. He’s panting and Carmen’s hot breaths match his own as she stares at him with wide eyes. Emotions dance in her eyes after kissing him with fiery passion and electricity. He watches her throat bob when she swallows.

Carmen blinks and a different mask shutters her eyes and Graham realizes she’s putting on an act. She giggles, a trilling and coquettish sound, and twirls a lock of her hair around one finger. Graham struggles to get himself in order, mind still hazy with the taste of her red lips.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The guard asks when he reaches them. He’s in his mid-fifties with unruly gray sideburns. He shines the light in both of their faces and Graham squints, holding up a hand to shield his eyes.

“Argh, not in the eyes, mate,” Graham says to buy him a moment of time, trying to remember what their story was supposed to be. His mind is only full of Carmen.

“I thought you said I’d get the private tour,” Carmen says in a pitch entirely different from her own.

The guard looks at her skeptically, then back to Graham and spots his guard attire.

“You new, son?”

“Ah, yes,” Graham says sheepishly. He ruffles his hair up, letting it flop into his face to give him a younger appearance in the hope it will endear him to the older guard. “Just started last week. I just, er, wanted to impress my girl, you know? Give her a little tour of the grounds.”

“It’s so romantic at night,” Carmen says with a dreamy expression.

The guard rolls his eyes discreetly and Graham is sure he hears him mutter that he’s getting too old for this under his breath.

“As long as it’s the grounds and not the exhibits. I’ll let you slide this once, but make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

The guard points a stubby finger in Graham’s face and he nods in agreement, holding up his hand.

“Of course, mate,” Graham says, chuckling nervously for the act. “Thanks for covering for me.”

“Better escort your friend to the nearest bus stop and get back to your shift,” the guard suggests.

Graham shoots him double finger guns. The guard nods politely to Carmen and starts down the path. Before he can reach the end, he turns back. “No more kissing on duty, either!”

“Yes, sir!” Graham calls, saluting the older guard.

When they’re alone once more, Graham slumps against the tree, chuckling with real laughter.

“That actually worked,” he says.

Carmen’s ditzy persona slips away and she crosses her arms across her chest, staring at him with an unreadable look.

“Before you say anything, technically it was you who kissed me,” Graham points out with a crooked grin. He holds his arms out invitingly. “And you can do it any time you like. You never know when you’ll need to brush up on your fake out make out skills.”

Carmen snorts and shakes her head slightly. “You think you’re so smooth.”

Graham shrugs. “Can’t help it, Red, I’m a naturally gifted charmer.”

He looks at her through lowered lashes and holds her gaze for the span of a few heartbeats. His entire being is screaming for her to step back into his embrace and continue where they left off. The air feels thick between them and Graham watches, transfixed, as Carmen hesitantly takes a step closer. For a minute, he thinks he’s actually going to get what he wants. He holds his breath, fingertips tingling with the phantom feeling of being allowed to touch her again.

Carmen takes another step and leans closer. It happens as if it’s slow motion, the sweep of her hair swinging forward and her head tilting to the side, her eyelashes lowering.

“Gray,” she says on a breath.

He hears more than just his name. He hears the unspoken things he wishes she would tell him. He swallows thickly, angling his face to meet her more easily.

 _Click_.

Graham jolts back into awareness.

Cold metal is enclosed on his wrist, keeping him secured in place to the garden fence next to the tree.

“Wha—” he begins to ask, but Carmen’s not even looking at him. She’s staring into the middle distance with two fingers against her ear. That damned comm device again.

“Carmen,” Graham says sharply, jerking his wrist against the restraint. He looks down at it and frowns. It doesn’t look like normal handcuffs. “Come on, what the hell? I thought we were doing this as a team!”

“Sorry, Gray,” Carmen says, sighing. She bends to retrieve her briefcase. “It’s only a timed restraint, so don’t worry. You won’t be caught by the authorities. I just need to be gone by the time you break free.”

“Why,” Graham says, not even a question—just a harsh, vile-tasting word in his mouth. “I thought—I thought…”

“I know,” Carmen says wistfully. “It’s better this way.”

“Says you.”

She turns without saying goodbye and he watches her get away with the thing they were both after. He snorts, a sharp, harsh sound when he remembers his plan to swipe the painting from under Carmen Sandiego’s nose.

Graham closes his eyes and the memories he’d pushed aside before return to the surface, unblocked by that kiss. His eyes snap back open and he loses his breath.

“You—Carm— _Black Sheep_!” Graham gets out in a strained rush, shouting at Carmen’s back.

Carmen whirls around to meet his eyes. Graham’s heart pounds. She’s too far away to make out her expression, but Graham can tell by the stiff set of her shoulders that she’s surprised.

He wants her to come back so he can tell her. He has to tell her. She breaks their stare and disappears into the night.

Graham’s head stings with the memories flooding back into his mind and he staggers back, stumbling against the tree, clutching his head in his free hand.

Graham raises his head with effort and swallows back the bile rising in his throat. He vows he's going to find her again, no matter where in the world Carmen Sandiego— _Black Sheep_ , his Black Sheep—decides to go. He's going to find her and he's going to earn her trust once again.

He barely registers the sound of the restraint releasing him, head still swimming with all of his lost memories at once, some out of order that he's trying to make sense of. One in particular stands out—the last night before it all went dark, when he'd tracked her to the train with her nesting dolls as bait.

He's never going to leave her side again, not after what V.I.L.E. did to him. She'd told him on that train that she hoped they'd be on the same side one day—her side, she'd said. That's what he wants now.

He was a fool for not listening to her that night, for giving his loyalty to V.I.L.E. and the mission over Black Sheep. This time he won't repeat that mistake. This time he'll make it right, will be good enough to be on her side.

Graham will make damn sure that's what happens. He's willing to do anything and everything to prove to Carmen that he wanted to be on her side now.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments + Kudos are ♥ | Come say hi (and flail with me!!) on tumblr [@carpemermaidhearts](http://carpemermaidhearts.tumblr.com)!


End file.
